Done with Love
by DogDemon67
Summary: After five months of dating, Molly decides that she doesn't really need to find the one. This news doesn't go over very well with Sherlock.


**A/N: _So, I wrote a thing. The inspiration for this came from a song in Zedd's latest album - Done with Love. It's an amazing song that leads into the song True Colors. The entire album is amazing, and you should look it up for sure._**

 ** _Anyway, I hope you enjoy this story. Please leave a review! Critique is very welcome~_**

* * *

For the past few months, any time Sherlock entered either the morgue or the lab and Molly was there, she would be hard at work with makeup on, her hair in a neat ponytail, and the ghost of a smile on her lips. Every few weeks or so there'd be a day opposite of that - messed up or no makeup, a messy ponytail, and the hint of red eyes from crying. It didn't take a genius like Sherlock to know what was going on - Molly was dating.

Obviously, she hadn't really found anyone permanent. Sherlock would often offhandedly ask for names during her good days, and she'd dreamily respond while telling him more than just the name. Sherlock didn't mind. If she was happy, she was doing her job well enough. She was also more animated, prettier, more focused, more open, and was prettier. The only downside was that she didn't seem to pay as much attention to him, but he liked to see her happy. It made him happy, too, for some reason. He may have been enjoying the weeks where she saw someone a bit too much, but he wouldn't admit that to anyone. He didn't have feelings, least of all for Molly Hooper. Not a singular one.

The random days she'd gone through a breakup were also days that Sherlock enjoyed rather selfishly. On those days, her hair would obviously not have been brushed, she wouldn't have eaten breakfast, and she would hardly focus on the job at hand. But on those days, she could read him better than normal. Sherlock would often take buy her lunch or dinner, depending on the time, to get food into her system. Sometimes he'd take her out to ice cream if the breakup was really bad. He'd always talk animatedly about his cases like she talked about her boyfriends. It helped her get her mind off the breakup and it helped Sherlock focus more on who the culprit was. Afterwards, he'd either walk her home or back to her job, and she'd be very well cheered up.

On this chilly spring evening, Sherlock was expecting another happy, dreamy Molly. She'd been with this guy (Jason? Joseph? Jackson?) for much longer than normal. It had been almost a month. In fact, if Sherlock remembered correctly, there were only three more days until their one month anniversary.

But when Sherlock walked into the lab with some samples he'd brought with him on his latest case, he saw a strange sight. She wasn't in either of the categories he'd seen lately. She didn't look like she was dating the guy anymore, but he could immediately tell that she wasn't going through a rough breakup.

Sherlock tried to shrug it off and went about his work, giving Molly a polite "Hello!" before going straight to the microscope and placing a slide under the lens. Molly gave him a "Hey!" that was too happy for someone going through a breakup, but too focused for someone in a relationship. Hadn't he seen the boyfriend-crazy Molly just two days before?

After a few minutes, Sherlock realized that he couldn't possibly work on the case before he figured out Molly.

Sherlock stood up rather abruptly. The stool he was sitting in slid against the floor, making a sudden grating noise. He could see Molly jump in her chair slightly and she turned around, putting the chemicals she was working with down to see what was up. Sherlock didn't move, however. He simply stared at Molly, trying to deduce her.

Her hair had been brushed, but it wasn't in a careful ponytail. It was more like she'd brushed it to look presentable, then sloppily placed a hair tie around it. He could see the crumbs of a biscuit on her shirt, which meant she ate, but it wasn't a true breakfast. She had minimal makeup on, and her eyes didn't look like they'd been crying.

Sherlock narrowed his eyes. Molly shifted uncomfortably.

"Uh, you okay there Sherlock?" Molly asked, getting up from her chair. She took a few steps forward, then stopped.

"Actually, I would like to ask if _you_ are okay," Sherlock responded.

"Well, yeah, I'm fine. What're you talking about?" Molly leaned against the table beside her, unsure of what to do.

"You're not with Jose anymore," Sherlock mumbled. He was looking at her shoes now, as though the meaning of life was concealed within the shoelaces.

"You mean Josh? Yeah, he broke up with me yesterday," Molly replied matter-of-factly.

Sherlock pulled his eyes back to Molly's face at the news. "I thought he was 'the one.'"

Molly let out a short laugh. "No, definitely not."

"So…" Sherlock's head moved to the side, giving her an odd look.

"So?" Molly asked, beginning to get a bit annoyed.

"Why aren't you in despair?" As soon as the words were out, he knew they probably weren't the best choice in wording. "I mean, most people are hurt after a breakup, and you were with this James guy for almost a month. Generally couples that have been together that long are moving somewhere with their relationship, so having a breakup in this stage is a bit of a big thing, and should cause-"

"It's fine, Sherlock," Molly said, concealing a smile. "I just had an epiphany yesterday while I was crying my eyes out over a carton of ice cream."

"Oh?" Sherlock mirrored Molly's stance and leaned against the table.

"Yeah. I realized that I don't need to search for love like I thought I did," Molly announced with a grin forming its way on her lips.

She was met with silence.

"Sherlock?"

"Hmm? Oh, yes, I didn't say anything, did I?" Sherlock mumbled. Even though his eyes were in Molly's direction, it didn't look like he was looking at her.

"No, you didn't," Molly replied, a bit worried.

"A few months ago you said that if you didn't go looking for love, you'd never find it," Sherlock muttered quietly.

"Yeah… I'm surprised you kept that in that big brain of yours," Molly said with an uncomfortable smile.

"What are you saying, then?" Sherlock asked. "About your love life, I mean. If you do not have to search for someone, what are you going to do?"

"Well, I guess you could say I'm done with love," Molly said with a humorless laugh.

Sherlock was silent for a minute before he spoke.

"Okay." He turned and sat back down in the stool. His expression was stoic. Molly had a hard time reading him, so she went back to her own experiment. After a few minutes, Sherlock was gone.

* * *

Sherlock burst into his flat. Mrs. Hudson was making tea for John and Mary. Sherlock ignored their greetings, instead laying down and immediately entering his mind palace. After a couple minutes, he began mumbling. John and Mary, the two offended and confused guests, couldn't help but eavesdrop in on his quick rambling.

"Five months ago she lost her grip on the bar in the tube and Thomas Logan caught her. He asked her to lunch and she were completely smitten, but he left her after a week because his job relocated him and she had not want to get caught in a long-distance relationship.

"A couple days later she was buying groceries - milk, sugar, American pop tarts, and ice cream - when the cashier Mark Smithson asked her to get coffee with him in a couple minutes on his lunch break. They dated for a few days before she realized he did drugs, so she broke up with him.

"Then, a week later, she attended a speed dating event, in which she met Patrick Dayton. She dated him for two weeks before he broke up with her for no explained reason. She attended the same speed dating event three days afterward to meet up with someone else, but that inevitably failed.

"Two weeks went by before she was saved in the pool by Phillip Russell. Her best friend had pushed her in when she weren't looking and, in her panic, breathed in some of the water and began to drown. The lifeguard saved her, then she asked him to dinner without meaning to. He agreed. They went out for two and a half weeks, but he couldn't come to terms with her job and had to leave her because of it.

"Then she downloaded some ridiculous dating app, and got a bunch of one-off dates from that. That went on for an entire month and a half before she realized it would not do her any good.

"At the end of that period of time, she met Josh Brown at the store. They bonded over a TV show called Doctor Who, and they dated for three weeks until just a couple days ago. Now she says she is 'done with love,' but that cannot be, because she has not asked me on one of these fancy little dates yet."

Sherlock quit mumbling rather abruptly. The fact that he could remember all those details spoke about just how much attention he'd paid to Molly's dreamy ramblings.

Mary turned to John. "Has he mentioned any of this to you?"

"Well, no, he's never told me he liked anyone. Frankly, I didn't think he had it in him, but I've no idea what I just heard." John stared down at his best friend. The whole thing had just sounded like he'd been recounting someone's dating experience, but that bit at the end there changed the tone of the whole thing.

"Do you know who he's talking about?" Mary asked, looking down at Sherlock as well.

"I mean, for the past five months Molly has been dating random guys on and off, but Sherlock wouldn't really talk much about it. He did mention the dating app to me, though, 'cause that really bothered him," John said, recounting the month and a half that Sherlock would barge into his house and rant on and on about how crazy and dangerous it is for Molly to meet up with complete strangers from this app where people rate you based on your appearance. It was pretty amusing, to say the least.

"That's it!" Mary shouted. "Sorry," she added with a sheepish grin.

"Tea?" Mrs. Hudson asked, popping in from the kitchen. John and Mary accepted the tea graciously. With one look to Sherlock, Mrs. Hudson was back down in her flat.

"What's it?" John asked, turning to Mary with the tea in his hand.

"It's got to be Molly," Mary declared.

"No, it can't be." John shook his head, taking a sip of his tea.

"It so is," Mary said, completely sure of herself.

"You haven't seen them when they're together," John replied, just as sure as himself. "He hardly looks at her."

"Well I don't think you've seen them when they're together," Mary answered with a wink.

"Of course I have. I visit her in the morgue with Sherlock when he drags me along on his cases. He barely looks her way and he uses her for body parts constantly. I mean, look in the fridge. It's probably full of organs from the morgue."

"But he does look at her," Mary argued. "You just have to be paying close attention to him."

"Does Sherlock even have it in him to care about someone like that?" John asked after a second, looking from Mary to Sherlock and back again.

"I think he has it in him to care about Molly like that," Mary said.

It was that moment that Sherlock came out of his mind palace. He seemed to suddenly notice that Mary and John were even in the room then.

"Oh, hello. When did you get here?" Sherlock asked with shock written all over his face.

"We've been here the whole time, actually," John said with a humored grin tugging at his lips.

Sherlock's eyes widened slightly before he made his face as stony as possible. "Should I get Mrs. Hudson to make some tea?"

"Actually, she already made us tea," Mary said, taking a sip from said cuppa.

"Oh," Sherlock mumbled. He looked around. "I've been working on a case."

"And you didn't bring your blogger?" Mary asked with a smirk and a mock-horrified look.

"Thank goodness for that," John muttered under his breath, receiving a shove from Mary.

"It was just a four," Sherlock said casually. "There was no need for a blogger."

"You took on a four?" John asked.

"There's nothing else." Sherlock sighed. "London is running out of good criminals."

"Only to Sherlock would that be a bad thing," Mary commented.

"It is a bad thing!" Sherlock objected.

"Well I can rest easy knowing that London is at peace," Mary said, leaning back in her chair and sipping on her cuppa.

Sherlock, John, and Mary enjoyed a nice dinner of take away while catching up on each other's lives. When John and Mary left to go home, Sherlock immediately went to bed. More specifically, he immediately lay down in his bed. He wasn't able to go to sleep with all the plotting he had to do. Molly was done with love, apparently. Sherlock may have never admitted it to anyone, but that day Molly had declared she would go searching for love was the day Sherlock had decided that he himself loved her. He never acted on it and tried his hardest to hide it, but now that she was completely done, Sherlock realized that he'd waited too long to act upon his feelings. It was now or never.

* * *

The next day, Sherlock took a cab to St. Bart's early in the morning. He knew Molly worked the morning shift on most Thursdays, and this day was no different from the others. He saw Mike on his way down to the morgue, who told Sherlock that Molly was actually in the lab. Sherlock thanked him, then turned around and hurried to the lab.

Sherlock barged through the doors. Molly hardly jumped, but the other pathologist in with her did. He was a young ginger who was completely terrified of Sherlock. When he saw the tall detective, he almost dropped his test tube.

"Out," Sherlock commanded with a deep voice. The young, new pathologist bolted out of the room in a heartbeat.

"Did you have to do that?" Molly asked, turning to Sherlock with a bit of anger in her voice. Her anger turned to confusion when Sherlock didn't stop walking toward her, however. He didn't say anything, either. Molly set down the petri dish in her hand and began to take some steps backward. "Sherlock?" When her back bumped into the wall, the man in question had reached her. He stood directly in front of her. He grabbed her arms and pinned her gloved hands to the wall. He kept eye contact with her for a second. "Sher-"

She was cut off by Sherlock's mouth planting itself onto hers. At first she did nothing. She had been caught so off guard that she was frozen against the wall. She could feel Sherlock begin to pull away, however, so she leaned forward to return the kiss.

Sherlock smirked against Molly's mouth, then deepened the kiss by trapping her on the wall with his body. His hands crept up her arms until his fingers found the end of her gloves. He pulled them off her hand by turning the gloves inside out, being the ever hygienic scientist. He peeked his left eye open and made sure that he tossed the gloves in the trash. Then he was able to turn all his attention back to Molly.

Molly's recently de-gloved hands had found their way into Sherlock's curly hair. Sherlock wasn't sure where to put his hands. First they were on her sides, then her hips, and finally onto her wrists.

Sherlock pulled away, resting his forehead against hers. Their heavy breaths mingled in the close space. Once he'd caught his breath, Sherlock spoke.

"So, you are done with love?"

"Huh? What're you t-talking about?" Molly asked, not caring in the slightest that her teeth were chattering and she had started stuttering again.

"Yesterday you told me you were done searching for a relationship," Sherlock explained. He had another smirk playing on his lips.

"I don't… Oh yeah," Molly mumbled. Sherlock's kiss had completely wiped away any memory she had of her life, but reality was coming back to her.

"I believe you ought to rethink that decision," Sherlock said in a deep voice. He pulled his face back so that he could look her in the eyes.

"Well… Why should I? I won't ever f-find someone," Molly argued as though the recent events hadn't happened. Sherlock looked a bit exasperated and slightly hurt.

"What about me?" Sherlock asked.

"You?" Molly squeaked out.

"My intentions when I entered the lab were not to snog you for no reason, Molly."

"Then… What were your intentions?"

"Must I spell this out for you?" Sherlock sighed. Molly couldn't find words to respond with. Sherlock shook his head, then said, "I wish to date you."

It took Molly a while until she could speak. "W-what?"

"I wish to date you, Molly Hooper."

"You wanna date… me?"

"You're making this difficult."

"Sorry, sorry! I just… This is, ah, news."

Sherlock responded by kissing her again. It was short yet forceful.

"So you wanna date me," Molly said when Sherlock had pulled away again.

"That is what I said," Sherlock replied.

"Okay," Molly mumbled.

"Okay." Sherlock smirked again, then kissed her for a third time, and for a third time Molly forgot all about the time she had declared herself done with love.


End file.
